New 2D Semiconductor Could Replace Silicon

Semiconductors are crystalline or amorphous solids with distinct electrical characteristics.They are of high resistance – higher than typical resistance materials, but still of much lower resistance than insulators. Their resistance decreases as their temperature increases, which is behavior opposite to that of a metal. Finally, their conducting properties may be altered in useful ways by the deliberate introduction (“doping”) of impurities into the crystal structure, which lowers its resistance but also permits the creation of semiconductor junctions between differently-doped regions of the crystal.

With electrons in 3D materials such as silicon becoming difficult to control at dimensions around 5nm, the use of 2D materials – materials that are one or two atoms thick – has become a subject of research in the last five years. Because as we know electrons can only move in one direction within 2D materials meaning they move faster than in 3D materials.

A new kind of semiconductor is the first material with a 2D geometry to provide the electrical properties of silicon — but its shape could mean that it’s actually able to outperform the reliable old material.

A team led by professor Ashutosh Tiwari at the University of Utah Material and Engineering is discovered a new kind of the two-dimensional semiconducting material for transistors. This discovery opens the door for much faster computer and smartphones that also consume much less power.

In order to create an electronic device, however, you need semiconductor material that lets both negative electrons and positive charges known as ‘holes’ to move around. According to researcher on the project, the tin monoxide material is the first stable 2D semiconductor material to have been discovered.

The new tin monoxide material is the first ever 2D semiconductor to allow the movement of both negative electrons and positive holes. “Now things will move forward much more quickly,” explains Ashutosh Tiwari, He’s referring not just to the speed of conduction — though that is higher, because holes and electrons move faster when constrained to a 2D plane — but the rate of technological development, too.

The 2D semiconductor material has been layered onto a substrate as a proof-of-concept. The scientists want to use the material in transistors, which form the basis of the processors found in all electronic devices, to significantly increase their speed.

Ashutosh Tiwari explained

Now we have everything – we have P-type 2D semiconductors and N-type 2D semiconductors. Now things will move forward much more quickly..,

This material will require much less power to run, a boon for mobile electronics that have to run on battery power. Tiwari said this could be especially important for medical devices such as electronic implants that will run longer on a single battery charge. A computer processor is comprised of billions of transistors and the more transistors packed into a single chip, the more powerful the processor can become. So now think about it how this research will become helpful in our technological life.